The New Back Row
by Marochre
Summary: NaruSasuNaru  A black-out hits the cinema where Naruto and Sasuke work. To avoid the chaos and the customers, they wander off together into the dark. Rating for boylove, nothing too intense however. Also, for language.


**AN: I'm really throwing them out here lately. Well, two in about four weeks is impressive for me, anyway. This is an AU piece because god knows I can't write anything else, and it is unrelated to the other pieces of NaruSasuNaru stuff I've written. Just because of the length of time they've been friends and a couple of other minor details. Whatever, not important.**

**This was inspired by my own desires to have a similar event happen to me. Given that I work at the movies, here's hoping right?**

**Warnings: Boylove. Not particularly explicit stuff, but it's there nonetheless. Swearing, also.**

**Disclaimer: Own nothing, yadda yadda.**

"… So yeah guys, basically we thought the back-up generators would come on but they haven't, so this is one hell of a black-out. We can do cash refunds now if you like but those of you who paid on card may have to wait until the power comes back, or we'll just set up complementary vouchers…"

Sasuke rolled his eyes, taking comfort in the fact that in the dark, no one could see the action and tell him off for seeming bored and sarcastic. His co-worker and best friend, Naruto, was talking to the large cluster of customers who had filed out of various cinemas within the complex once they realised that their films weren't going to turn back on and that all the lights, even the green exit ones, were similarly out. It was only just gone nine-thirty, and the last sessions of the night had started, only to abruptly stop when a particularly loud clap of thunder practically shook the large building. The cinema had dealt with black-outs before but rarely at this time of night, at least not in Sasuke's memory of his time working there. During the day, power failures were easy to deal with because of the skylight near the entrance stairs. Being dark outside however, meant the cinema, with all its lights out, was virtually pitch black.

"Sasuke, help me get these dudes rounded up, yeah?" Naruto asked, suddenly right near Sasuke, who had zoned out for a moment. "If we line them up near box office, it'll be our good deed for tonight and we can slack off for a bit," he reasoned, upon hearing Sasuke sigh at being asked to do something annoying.

"Yeah, fine."

"Be nice. It's dark, people won't be falling over themselves to do what you ask when they can't see you, you've gotta give them a pleasant attitude for a change," Naruto teased quietly. He raised his voice then to the customers. "Alright guys, we'll just head over to box office and see what we can get sorted out. The location manager will be in there helping out so direct all your yelling at him."

Sasuke smirked. Kakashi wasn't really one for working with the customers if he could help it. He tended to just sit out in the office and read inappropriate literature that he didn't even bother trying to hide, even when the youngest, most bright-eyed little innocent employees would walk in. It was amusing to think of him having to deal with over three-hundred customers at once, especially since the kids running box office were just sitting there getting mad at the computers for not turning back on. Their attitudes to the black-out suggested to Sasuke that they wouldn't be a huge amount of help.

__

Not my problem though, he thought. He just stuck to the task at hand, which was to help Naruto herd the group of people like they were sheep. They both knew that when left to their own devices, customers at their cinema would just float away and get lost somewhere. It seemed to Sasuke that as soon as people walked into the cinema complex, roughly 90% of their intelligence was zapped away by some unseen force and they needed an in-depth explanation on absolutely everything.

Naruto was right though, for a change. While usually Sasuke could give one-word instructions to customers (depending on their sexual orientation, obviously) and have them listen to him without argument, tonight he had to actually act like he was employed as a customer service assistant. Which of course was in his job description, but as was already mentioned, he could more or less get away with being a dick because of how he looked. Without this aspect of himself being available for now, he was just another cinema drone who had to be nice and accommodating to even the dumbest and unreasonable of customers.

"We've come all this way, spent a lot of money and we expect more than this," a customer rambled to Naruto.

"Absolutely, I know," Naruto responded, being Mr. Customer-Service if there ever was one, "Can't trust anything to stand up to the weather anymore, can you?"

"Not at all. This is just so inconvenient. And this kind of thing only ever happens here, you know. Never at other cinemas," continued the customer.

__

Then why the fuck would you keep coming to this cinema? Sasuke wondered. He hated customers like this. Ones that returned time and time again, only to have complaints each time. This was not the only cinema in the city, there was another not fifteen minutes away. He was relieved that he was faced with the more compliant customers, who if anything seemed surprised that he was actually there. It was as if he was invisible, his black hair blending him in with the darkness of the complex. Naruto on the other hand seemed as if he was covered in glow-in-the-dark serum or something. His blonde hair was almost comically visible even though there was so little lighting anywhere. So, he got to deal with all the annoying customers.

"I think it's because we're closer to the hills," he heard Naruto respond to the customer's complaint. His friend offered no further explanation than that, clearly not knowing how to back up his claim but not wanting to sell his workplace too short.

Naruto loved the cinema. Sasuke did too, he supposed, if he was forced at gunpoint to admit it. It was a great job to have. It was flexible, they got to watch free movies, and the pay rate was pretty decent given the undemanding nature of the job. Naruto had begun working there basically as soon as the law would allow him to (so, aged fourteen and nine months). He wasn't particularly interested in getting part-time work but his guardian, Iruka, was a supervisor there so it kind of just happened one day. Then, a little over a year later, Naruto had insisted on Sasuke working there too. The two had met in their first year of high school, and while Sasuke had initially claimed that he didn't really need _more _Naruto in his life by working alongside him, he was secretly glad he'd been able to get a job there so easily.

Nothing like a bit of nepotism.

Naruto was looking at being promoted to a supervisor position, soon. He had a knack for dealing with customers and while he wasn't the best at school academically, he was so used to all the paperwork that came through the cinema because of living with Iruka, that it was just second-nature to him. A lot of their co-workers weren't pleased with this idea, and in fact weren't even cool with him being a trainer for new staff members. It seemed that they'd caught on rather early to how Naruto had obtained his job and had held it against him ever since. Sasuke received similar treatment at times but he wasn't really proactive enough in regards to the job to aspire to anything greater so he was usually left alone.

Neither of the boys really let the work-place politics get to them, there wasn't any point. You could either ignore it, or quit, and they both had too much pride to let something so convenient go just because people occasionally showed disrespect to them. It did bug Sasuke though that he was treated more fairly by the girls, than Naruto was. Naruto would joke about it but Sasuke knew it pissed him off. Sasuke was very, very good-looking and the majority of females at their work would routinely try to crack his anti-social shell. It must have been his 'mysterious' vibe because it's not as if Naruto wasn't also pleasing to the eyes. He was just so accessible, so endlessly friendly to everyone that he wasn't really a challenge. The girls had decided that his friendliness was yet another thing that bothered them about him and chose to focus on Sasuke and would deliberately not listen to Naruto when he asked something of them.

Sometimes the cinema was a pain in the ass.

Sasuke liked having things easy, it was true, but it wasn't as if he actually perpetuated it by being friendly to his co-workers, so they came off looking like suckers most of the time anyway. It was kind of his own brand of loyalty to Naruto, ignoring those who gave his friend a hard time. Not that he would have ever admitted it, and not that Naruto would ever accept Sasuke helping him out socially in any way.

In any case, Sasuke got far more crap from the guys than Naruto did. Bitterness exuded from every pore of these guys. Their huge workplace should have been their ticket to girls, girls, girls but they were all obsessed with Sasuke.

So, the two boys just stuck together in their own twisted way, which involved arguing loudly in public, and being generally sarcastic to one another. They had a small set of friends from the cinema, but it was rare for them to all be working at once. Shikamaru, who was a projector, usually napped upstairs in the projection room, where there was a conveniently placed couch. He was there at the time of the black-out and had stopped communicating with the staff via the radios once his obligations were met. Temari, Shikamaru's girlfriend, was working at the small bar across the foyer and had walked past Sasuke a few minutes after the black-out hit, two bottles of beer in hand. She had proceeded to go upstairs to projection and hadn't come down since.

Sasuke couldn't hold it against them. A couch and a beer sounded like heaven, and he didn't even drink beer. The couple were good workers, and good company in general. They didn't conform to all the workplace bullshit and saw Sasuke and Naruto for who they were. The four of them, along with Sakura (who was fine as long as she wasn't fawning over Sasuke), Ino, Kiba, Hinata and Lee often made time to hang out outside of work.

A sudden tug on his grey button-up top shook Sasuke out of his work-robot mindset, which was the best way for him to deal with so many people at once without things turning ugly. He blinked and saw that Naruto was right next to him and that, from what he could tell in the dark, the two of them had managed to get the customers in four orderly lines in front of the ticket booths.

"I'm over this crap, can we go hide somewhere?" Naruto asked, as if Sasuke was somehow the authority figure and not him.

Sasuke nodded. He wanted very much to just leave it all in the hands of the other staff, and since Naruto was on board also he felt secure enough in doing so. "Let's go."

Naruto's hand released its loose hold on the shirt and relocated itself in Sasuke's fingers. That was a bit odd, though Naruto was prone to doing affectionate little things when no one else was looking. Sasuke allowed himself to lightly hold onto Naruto's hand, and be dragged across the foyer to the tunnel of cinema doors. They walked straight past the concessions stand, which was also engulfed in darkness but filled with chatter and laughter and the sound of popcorn being snacked on by staff.

The two boys kept walking until they reached the cinema furthest away from the chaos of the foyer. They could barely see anything but had walked the same halls for so long that they knew instinctively when there was something to avoid tripping over. Naruto led them into the cinema and didn't stop until he reached the very front row of seats. He sat down on the floor, rather than on a seat. Sasuke followed suit. They both knew what went on in those seats. The front row was the new back row.

"Well that was really fucking annoying, wasn't it?" Naruto asked. It was a rhetorical question but Sasuke felt the need to answer it anyway.

"No shit."

"Kakashi is going to be so pissed that we left," Naruto mused. He laughed quietly to himself.

"Whatever, let the others do some work for a change," Sasuke said, shuffling around a bit to get more comfortable on the stiff carpeted floor.

"True," Naruto said. "Oh hey, a dollar!"

Sasuke glanced down at Naruto's hand which appeared to hold a coin that he'd found on the floor next to him. He reached over and felt it, making sure it was in fact a dollar and not ten cents, which was a mistake often made when finding coins in the dark.

"Heh. Your tip for the night, I guess," Sasuke said, retracting his hand.

"We deserve tips for all the crap we put up with here."

Sasuke wasn't sure if Naruto was referring to the crap they got from irritable customers, or the crap they got from their co-workers. Possibly both.

"You did find that fifty dollar note once," Sasuke pointed out.

"Oh yeah," Naruto remembered. "I still feel bad for not giving that to lost and found."

"Don't be stupid, whoever was in box office that day would have just taken it for themselves," Sasuke reasoned, "It's not like anyone came back for it by the end of the night."

"I guess so," said Naruto. "Cheers for justifying it."

"Well it was spent on a good night, if I recall," Sasuke reminded him.

It had been a good night, too. The boys used to spend a lot of time hanging out with Sasuke's brother, who provided them with alcohol and weed since they often had trouble procuring it. Itachi had moved interstate though to go to graduate school, and so their pastime had been halted. When Naruto found the money they decided that they would hunt down a bag of weed, and by two in the morning they had managed to find a dealer through friends of friends. Naruto had played dramatic music in the car on the way to picking up the bag, and back home again, enjoying feeling like a criminal. Back at the house, they had spent much of the night talking about the moon and giggling at Naruto's cat. They hadn't smoked up a lot so far in their last year of high school, but when they had done, it was always fun.

"We have some good times," Naruto said vaguely, clearly reminiscing about the night. "No one would ever guess you can grin so much."

Sasuke couldn't help the small smile that formed on his face, and the darkness masked it anyway. He so often had things in his head that he never said, expressions floating around behind his eyes that never came to the surface, and Naruto knew how to draw them all out from hiding. Only in private though. As if he wanted that side of Sasuke to remain hidden from the world.

"But it's only with me, huh?" Naruto continued, as if reading Sasuke's mind. "I like that. I like having the fun Sasuke to myself."

Sasuke found himself wanting to hear more about this. So he merely responded, "Oh?"

"Yeah, it's like…" Naruto trailed off, trying to think of the words he wanted. "It's like I get to laugh at all those dumb girls who think they love you, even though you're this total dickhead to them with the personality of a plank of wood. But I know better. Because you let me in."

"A plank of wood? Thanks," Sasuke said, sarcastically.

"You know it's true."

Sasuke sighed. "If all those girls acted a bit more interesting, maybe I'd act a bit less boring."

"Yeah, that's so not true at all but alright," Naruto responded with a smirk. "It's okay. Maybe no one in the world is good enough for you but at least you put up with me."

Sasuke suddenly felt warm, and he registered that Naruto had leaned over to hug him. He relaxed into it as much as he could, and sighed when he felt Naruto's hand run through his hair. Sasuke had long since realised that hands through his hair triggered erogenous zones but he wasn't about to mention that.

"We aren't very normal, are we?" Naruto asked, still holding onto Sasuke.

"You tell me."

"That's a dumb answer."

"You're a dumb answer."

Naruto leaned out of the hug and lightly tapped Sasuke's cheek with his open hand. "Your face is a dumb answer."

"Your mum is a dumb answer," Sasuke replied, knowing that he was the only person on the planet who could get away making such a joke to Naruto, who was an orphan.

"Your mum's face is a dumb answer."

At this point Sasuke was running out of retorts, at least ones that ran smoothly from the previous one, which was important to him, and he was moderately distracted by the fact that Naruto's fingers just brushed over his. Sasuke's hand was rested on the floor but not particularly close to Naruto, so the act didn't seem to be a mistake. Confusing.

"Out of responses then?" Naruto asked smugly.

"Well, you're being slightly…" Sasuke looked down at his hand, which was still being stroked by Naruto. "Distracting."

Naruto chuckled. "Totally my intention," he said.

Sasuke shuffled a bit, but didn't move his hand.

"Is it possible that maybe you _like_ this?" Naruto questioned, brushing his thumb over Sasuke's knuckles.

"Why, do you?" Sasuke responded, a little too quickly.

"What the fuck is with you avoiding all my questions tonight?" Naruto asked.

"Well they're stupid questions."

Naruto sighed. Sasuke sighed straight after, to annoy him.

"I'll stop trying to figure out where your head is at, then, and just go with it," Naruto said quietly.

Sasuke was taken aback by that statement. "Go with what?"

He barely got to complete that sentence before Naruto was right up against him, kissing him. Sasuke was surprised, to say the least. Naruto was kissing him, yes, but what was more surprising was that the usually clumsy boy had managed to find his mouth straight away, even in the dark. There had been no fumbling, it was swift and it was happening. As if this was planned, and Naruto had spent weeks mapping out Sasuke's form so that when the time came that they were in the dark together, he'd be able to flawlessly execute this very act.

Sasuke's thoughts were interrupted by Naruto deepening the kiss and making it impossible for Sasuke to not respond to it. He twisted himself so that he was facing his whole body toward Naruto, and pressed his lips firmly into the kiss, for reasons he couldn't quite figure out. The two had discussed sexuality before, because Naruto was all for sharing, and they had concluded that the blonde's sexuality could be described as 'straight but easily bent'. Sasuke, on the other hand… Sasuke was Sasuke. He took things on an individual basis and had long since realised that gender wasn't really an issue for him simply because most people didn't interest him much either way. His sexual experience was based entirely on whims, whims that didn't occur very frequently.

Still, his whims had never quite led him in this direction, or at least not to the point that the two had ever done _this._ Sure, Naruto was very affectionate at times and it had occasionally led Sasuke to think 'what if' but he had always refused to acknowledge it with any kind of serious consideration. It just never seemed like one of those things that could turn out well.

Naruto didn't seem to share this sentiment. He broke away, and kissed slowly across Sasuke's jaw, not making any effort whatsoever to keep their activities silent. He slipped an arm around Sasuke's waist and pulled him closer, and the dark haired boy complied by straddling Naruto's legs. Yes, this was definitely happening. He leaned right into the blonde, pushing him against the seating behind them.

"Dude, ew, don't make me touch those seats," Naruto said, stopping his trail of kisses to wipe the back of his neck to remove some imaginary grossness. He scooted forward on the carpet, which forced the boy's hips to bump together. Sasuke sighed at the contact and leaned in to brush his lips over Naruto's. He could feel a twitch in his lower belly, and indulged it by grinding more deliberately into Naruto, who let out an audible moan.

Naruto leaned against his 2-way radio accidentally, and a crackle of static sounded from the speaker. The two boys immediately ceased their activity and looked down to the radio as if it was going to explode. Sasuke reached down and unclipped the radio from Naruto's pocket, and turned the volume quite a ways down. He then set it on the floor next to them.

"I don't really want to be reminded that I'm at work," Sasuke reasoned.

Naruto laughed, fiddling with the buttons on Sasuke's shirt. "Really? Because I'm totally digging this. I've always wanted to mess around in the cinema."

"Why not just take a girl out to a movie then?" asked Sasuke, glancing down at Naruto's fingers which weren't unbuttoning his shirt but were giving the impression that he'd like to do just that.

"Well that's not exactly forbidden is it?" Naruto pointed out. "I mean actually on shift, like this. As soon as the black-out hit I just wanted to sort all the shit out in the foyer and get you alone in here." He sounded a tiny bit shy as he said that last bit, Sasuke noticed.

"So this is premeditated then?" asked Sasuke, trying to ignore how genuinely flattered he felt about all of this. As if every girl working in the box office or concession stand wouldn't have followed Sasuke into the dark cinema had he extended the invite.

Naruto looped an arm around Sasuke's waist again, and used his other hand to prop himself up as he pushed forwards, slipping his legs out from between Sasuke's and pinning the slimmer boy beneath him. "One has to come up with a plan to get the great Sasuke Uchiha, do they not?"

"What, so you short-circuited all of the wiring in the cinema?"

Sasuke smiled as Naruto leaned down and kissed him firmly. "Nah man," Naruto replied after pulling away from the kiss slightly, "just my own amazing luck."

Sasuke decided to end the talking there. He grasped Naruto's hips with his hands and then lifted his own hips, pushing them together. He was pleased to note that he wasn't the only one whose body had begun to respond to the situation. Naruto didn't need prompting after that. The blonde reached down between their bodies and rubbed Sasuke through his loose work pants. Sasuke responded by moving his hands from Naruto's hips, up past his waist and under his shirt. The boy on top shivered as Sasuke's hands roamed experimentally over his back, then around to the front where they brushed over his nipples, before moving downward, contouring slightly into Naruto's belly-button and finishing up in a patch of coarse hair above his waistband.

"How far do you want to take this exactly?" Naruto asked, sounding a little nervous all of a sudden.

Sasuke smirked and slipped his fingers ever so slightly beneath the waistband of Naruto's pants. "I'd rather not add to the fluid count in this general area if that's okay," he said. He leaned up for a kiss, which Naruto met with enthusiasm. They continued to touch each other in what struck Sasuke as a rather hesitant and innocent fashion. It occurred to him that they actually cared what the other thought. It made their touches less adventurous than they might have been with another, and their grinding more like gentle rubbing.

Still though, it was _good_. They kissed playfully and it was just _fun_. Sasuke couldn't recall any more enjoyable experiences he'd had of this nature. Not that there had been a huge number to compare it to. He felt Naruto smile against his lips. He liked that Naruto was enjoying himself too.

What a pleaser Sasuke was when it didn't involve actually saying anything out loud.

Their hips began to press together with more force, and Sasuke felt like he was close. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing. His shift didn't have much longer to go but he didn't feel like walking out into the foyer with damp pants. But… it felt great. He didn't see why they couldn't just finish and sleep right there on the floor…

Except that suddenly he realised he could see Naruto, bright and vibrant, blinking as he adjusted to the dim lighting that had suddenly turned on. The soft music that played between sessions switched on and Sasuke was struck with the feeling that he needed to clean the room they were in. Damn psychological associations.

Naruto slowly moved back from Sasuke, as if not wanting to jump back and offend the dark haired boy but not really wanting to be caught in the act by anyone who might walk in, either. Sasuke slid out from underneath him and glanced down at his… situation. It was definitely at attention. A quick glance down at Naruto suggested a similar dilemma.

"So… what do we do about this?" Naruto asked meekly, settling down on the ground in front of Sasuke, who raised his knees in an attempt to retain some dignity if anyone walked in.

Sasuke shrugged. He looked up at the blank screen above them. "Not sure. Wait a few minutes, I guess?"

Naruto looked at him with a confused expression on his face. "What?" He blinked a couple of times before glancing at Sasuke's legs which hid his problem and down at his own lap which he hadn't put any effort into covering. He grinned. "Oh. Right. See, I actually meant 'this' as in the whole deal, like what do we do once this shift is over and you come to my house to watch that movie I downloaded."

Sasuke had forgotten about that plan. He was surprised to realise how keen he was to still carry it out. Naruto wasn't one for acting awkward and he knew the blonde would deliver him a punch to the gut if he made it so. Also, he was ready to kill a man over how worked up he felt at that current moment. He really needed to finish what they'd started but he wasn't much in the mood for taking care of it alone.

A quiet voice interrupted Sasuke before he could start responding, and they both looked to the 2-way radio. Sasuke reached over and turned it up. "- should probably come out now, guys," Kakashi's voice said through the crackly-sounding radio.

The boys looked at one another wide-eyed. They knew that he probably just meant they should come out from wherever they were and help out, but Kakashi, all-knowing as he so often was, could well have meant 'come out' in a much different sense.

Naruto was the first to shake himself out of his shock and grabbed the radio off of Sasuke. "We'll be out in a moment, dude," he spoke into the receiver.

"Don't call me 'dude'."

Naruto didn't respond to that. Instead he looked at Sasuke. "So, what were you going to say before we were rudely interrupted?"

Sasuke thought about his response for a moment, having had a good one a few moments ago but managing to completely forget what it was as soon as he heard Kakashi's voice on the radio.

"We can…" he started quietly. "Go back to your house and... not… watch the movie?"

Naruto got a mischievous look in his eyes. "It's meant to be a pretty good movie."

"Well, I'll start watching it then if you bore me."

That statement earned Sasuke a dollar coin to the forehead.

"You won't be bored." 

**AN: Thanks for reading, guys!  
**


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